In recent days, Russia has started what could be the final offensive of this war, especially considering the exhaustion of its army and the diminishing available resources, not so much in terms of recruits but in armored vehicles and weaponry, which are becoming scarcer.
With the arrival of good weather, attacks have multiplied along the entire front line, but especially in the Pokrovsk area, the heart of Donbass, and in the northern border, in the Sumy region. It is the same place where last Palm Sunday Russia killed 35 civilians in the center of its capital with two Iskander missiles loaded with highly prohibited cluster munitions in urban areas.
For weeks, the Ukrainian high command had been warning of large concentrations of Russian troops on the border with neighboring Kursk. Moscow has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to penetrate the defenses that Ukraine has prepared throughout the winter. The strategy is to try to conquer at least one provincial capital in Ukraine, something that could be portrayed as a victory in Moscow, as since the invasion began, Russia has not been able to hold onto any. Even Kherson, controlled during the early days of the war, was lost months later. By taking Sumy, they could also threaten the entire supply route to the city of Kharkiv, the country's second most important city, and try to isolate it.
But the reality at this point is that any Russian advance comes at the cost of thousands of soldiers. Just yesterday, the British Intelligence service estimated 1,300 daily casualties in the Russian army, slightly less than the number of dead and wounded, set at 1,600 by the end of 2024.
Regarding the supposed ceasefire that Vladimir Putin was supposedly negotiating with Donald Trump, nothing is known because Moscow plans and executes offensives that take months to prepare while massaging Trump's ego and that of his envoys to the Kremlin, like Steve Witkoff, who even touched his heart before shaking hands with Putin.
Faced with the brutal bombing in Sumy on Sunday and Trump's bewildering role, who referred to the attack as "a mistake", Zelensky sent a personal message to the US president: "Do you think you understand what is happening here in Ukraine? Before any negotiations, come see the people, civilians, soldiers, hospitals, churches, injured or dead children. You will see what Putin did." But Trump's response was even closer to Moscow's position: "The war between Russia and Ukraine is Biden's war, not mine." And he continued: "Biden and Zelensky did a horrible job allowing this war." In the criticisms coming from the current White House, Putin is never held responsible for anything, despite the fact that only he ordered an invasion of a sovereign and democratic territory and his army has been committing atrocities in Ukraine for over three years.
Trump's submission and the entire MAGA world (Make America Great Again) to Putin's Russia contrasts with the almost unanimous response that the attack received from Ukraine's European allies. All came out in condemnation of the bombing, just like last week when Russia attacked a playground in the city of Dnipro.
As if wanting to make that distance clear, Zelensky thanked all the leaders (including Pedro Sánchez) who showed solidarity with Ukraine after the bombing on his X account, further highlighting the void left by the US. Neither Trump nor Vance referred to the attack on social media.
In this context, the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who appears much more resolute than the socialist Olaf Scholz, has once again brought up the issue of supplying Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles, capable of hitting targets over 400 kilometers away, further complicating Russian logistics.
While the Kremlin prepares for its May 9th celebration, the so-called Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is known in Russia, Zelensky has countered by calling on European leaders to Kiev on the same day and with the same objective: to reflect the distance that exists today between Moscow and the rest of Europe.